Production line boom

The first two months of 2006 were impressive when it came to the level of industrial production in Poland. According to the Central Statistical Office (GUS), in January industrial production surpassed the figure for the same period of 2005 by eight percent, while in February it rose nearly 10 percent year-on-year.

Some 23 branches out of 29 recorded better results. The biggest boost in production came in telecommunication devices which rose 96.5 percent. Car and trailer production grew by 15 percent, while juices and groceries took third place, improving by 13.9 percent.

Poland is not alone in Central Europe in terms of a steep rise in industrial production. Other post-communist states are close behind, and countries such as Estonia and Latvia are experiencing even faster growth in individual sectors. 'Old Europe' is left far behind with production levels and capacities decreasing or only slightly increasing. In December 2005, Estonian production rose 3.6 percent y-o-y,  and Polish production increased by 1.2 percent.

"Such vast differences between the new and the old members of the EU are present because of our structural delay," Bohdan Wyżnikiewicz, deputy CEO of the Gdańsk Institute for Market Economics says. "For many years industry in Poland and other CEE countries was far behind the progress the rest of Europe was achieving. Now industry here is catching up. Second of all, the level of exports is very high, and this makes industry produce more because there's increasing demand.